report thus made, and should it think fit it will make an inquiry on its own account, calling on representatives of the railways or of the other interests affected, to attend and give such further information as may be desired. Presumably also each member of the Committee has the right to express his views on the subject. Finally a decision is arrived at by the Committee; but this decision can take the form only of a recommendation to the Minister of Public Works; while after all the circumlocution thus gone through, it is still open to the Minister in question to disregard everything that has been done and give the ultimate decision, oui or non, according to his own individual opinion. In practice, however, he is generally guided by the advice of the Consultative Committee. . .

One month is the least period in which the alteration in an ordinary railway rate in France can be made to pass through the necessary stages, and it may very well happen that the procedure will occupy for from six to twelve months. There is a case on record in which a company applied early in the spring for permission to grant a lower passenger rate to a certain seaside resort. The matter was considered, and the Minister eventually granted the request; but the notification of his assent did not reach the company until the month of October-when the holiday season was over.”*

This whole question has been very well summed up by President Hadley, of Yale. "It is an interesting fact," he says, "that a railroad which is owned and managed by the state, in its general policy is much more like our own railroads than is a road which is owned by a private company but strictly controlled by state regulations. In the latter case the state has no direct interest in making exceptions to its own rules. In the former it has. The rules which a state will make for itself are therefore less rigid than those which it

*Railways and Their Rates, E. A. Pratt, pp. 230-233.

†Railroad Transportation, pp. 200–201.

will make for other people. This difference is strikingly seen in comparing the development of railroads in Belgium and Germany, where the state actually owns the leading roads, with that in France where it merely controls them. The former is much more untrammeled.”

In connection with this problem of rate regulation a very interesting and promising suggestion has been made by Mr. Bryan,‡ to the effect that, instead of asking the government to work out all the infinitely delicate and complicated problems involved in the making of railroad rates, Congress should so limit the profits of the roads as to keep the price of railroad stocks at par. A similar suggestion was made by Senator Newlands to the effect that the profits allowed to the railroads be limited to a reasonable percentage on the actual capital invested-perhaps six per cent. It is maintained that, if properly reinforced by provisions regulating railroad capitalization, the salaries to be paid railroad officials, and the methods to be employed in conducting purchases of supplies, rolling stock, etc., a plan of this general nature would bring about automatically a gradual and continuous reduction in rates.

Doubtless this contention is true, and if true it is important, but at the same time it seems very probable that such a system would have a tendency to become what the French call a regie désintéressé, a régime in which the managers would have very little if any financial incentive to build up their traffic, cut down their expenses and in other ways to increase the economic efficiency of their roads. In other words it is difficult to see in what way such a régime would call out any more "individual initiative" than would a régime of complete government ownership and operation.

A THOROUGH-GOING INVESTIGATION

REQUIRED.

No one who has made a careful study "What the People Should Demand of the Railroads,” Reader Magazine, February, 1908.

of the present attitude of the American people toward the railroads, would be at all surprised to see them rise up during our next period of serious unrest and inaugurate a vastly more radical and farreaching system of railroad regulation than that which I have outlined above. As a matter of fact it is by no means certain that they would be content to stop at this. Owing to the traffic mismanagement, crooked stock manipulations and intolerable insolence of some of our railroad magnates, the sentiment among the masses in favor of government ownership is steadily on the increase. As President Hadley of Yale, in the closing words of his famous work on this problem, said: "There is a strong popular feeling, to a large extent unsuspected by those in authority, in favor of government ownership of railroads as a system. No one can have much to do with the more thoughtful workingmen without finding how strong that feeling is, and what hopes are based upon it. The fact that the question is not now under discussion must not blind us to the fact that forces are at work which may prove all but revolutionary when the question actually does come under discussion. If it be true that government railroad ownership would be a most serious political misfortune for the United States, we must be prepared to meet the danger with our eyes open. Unless we are able to face it intelligently, and to show reason for our action, the widespread feeling in its favor will prove too strong for us. It may not come for many years; but the lessons of the Granger movement show plainly enough what forces will lie behind it when it does come."*

As shown again and again in the history of European railroads and most strikingly in the cases of Prussia and Italy, it sometimes requires but a few short months to crystalize this vague unexpressed public sentiment into an irresistible popular demand, and to transform an almost unanimous political majority against gov*Railroad Transportation.

ernment ownership, into an overwhelming majority in its favor. In the light of these facts the ostrich policy of burying our heads in the sand and refusing to look the situation squarely in the face, would seem to be as stupid and as dangerous from the standpoint of the railroads as it is from that of the general public. It becomes every day more apparent that unless some way can be found to make plain to the American people the danger involved both in over-regulation and in a premature attempt at nationalization, we need not be at all surprised to see them, during our next economic crisis, take the bit in their teeth and insist upon the enactment of sweeping and hazardous innovations of the one sort or of the other. In order to avoid this peril, there should be created at the earliest possible opportunity either a Committee of Specialists under the general supervision of the Inter-State Commerce Commission or a Board of Investigators entirely independent of it, whose duty it shall be to carry on a profound and world-wide investigation of the whole question of railroad transportation. This Committee or Board should have authority to summon witnesses from all parts of the country and to secure the assistance of foreign specialists in the prosecution of its researches abroad. If properly constituted and equipped it could ascertain for the American people: first, the point beyond which any extension of government regulation ceases to be a public benefit and tends to become a public peril; secondly, what kind of regulation, up to this point, is apt to prove the most useful; and thirdly, what would be the fairest, the most conservative and the most businesslike form of procedure for our government, if after having made a thorough trial of railroad regulation at its best, the people finally should decide that this best was not good enough and that they wished to embark upon a policy of publicly owned and operated railroads.

If a Committee or Board of this general nature, composed of eminent author

ities in whom the people could put confidence, were to be appointed and set to work at once, it would do more to allay needless and heedless future agitation than any other step which the government could take.

A SUSPENDED SENTENCE OF NATIONALIZATION.

During over half a century the American people made a thorough but entirely unsatisfactory trial of the policy of laisser faire or no regulation. For about a quarter of a century now we have been trying to develop a more satisfactory system of regulation. Therefore no matter what our personal predilections or theories may be in the matter, in accordance with the simple process of mathematical elimination, it necessarily follows, that in the event of the failure to give satisfaction of our present policy of regulation, our only remaining alternative is the plan of government ownership. It thus becomes clear that not by force of any legislative enactment or judicial decree which can be reversed or set aside by a higher court, but in accordance with the resistless trend of events, over which neither politicians nor magnates nor judges have any control, the railroads of our country to-day are being operated under a "suspended sentence" of nationalization.

another chance but also does everything in his power, even to utilizing the moral stimulus of a sentence dangling menacingly over his head, to encourage him to brace up and make the most of himself.

Does it not seem that the time had about arrived to give the railroads of the country an equal chance with the drunkards and others, who are profiting by the application of this new and successful principle in jurisprudence?

Upon the continued well being and constant development of our railroads depends the prosperity and happiness of the entire country. Let them therefore be regulated not in a spirit of vengeance but wisely and temperately. If they are restricted and circumvented and tied up too closely, all the commercial and industrial interests which are dependent upon them will suffer. How much better therefore to allow them as much liberty of action as is consistent with fair play-but at the same time, by the appointment of the suggested Board and in other ways, to take such steps as will make absolutely plain to those of them who do not yet realize the practically automatic nature of their "suspended sentence," that if the liberty which is necessary to their continued economic efficiency is abused the "suspended sentence" of nationalization, cannot possibly be warded off-that "On their own heads, in their own hands, the sin and the saving lies."

Such an arrangement would enable us to bring our system of railroad regulation up to the highest possible standard of efficiency by surrounding it with every obtainable condition of success.

CARL S. VROOMAN.
Cotuit, Massachusetts.

In each group the measures suggested by the people fare better than those favored by the legislature, they receive a larger vote in their support with a smaller vote against them and are consequently decided by majorities much more in their favor.

The total number of voters who went to the polls was 116,614. The Republican and the Democratic parties combined on a candidate for justice of the Supreme Court who received 105,208 votes. The chief issue at stake was the selection of a United States Senator, and the contest was very sharp. A majority of the legislature having been pledged to vote, without regard to party preferences, for the candidate who received the largest popular vote, the popular preference expressed by such vote would practically amount to his definite election. Though an overwhelming majority of the legislature was chosen from the Republican party, the Democratic candidate for United States Senator, Governor George E. Chamberlain, won by a vote of 52,421 to 50,899 for his Republican opponent, H. M. Cake, while two other candidates between them received 9,044, making a total of 112,364 votes in all.

The heaviest vote cast on any of the nineteen questions was 95,528, the lightest was 70,726, and the average on all was 86,428.

The total vote, however, is of less importance than the comparative vote and the majority obtained by the winning side. This is easily demonstrated. A vote of fifty-five to twenty-five out of a possible one hundred with its plurality of

though the latter's total of ninety is considerably the larger, yet its plurality is insignificant, and the winning vote constitutes but a minimum of the whole. The "total vote" rather tends to emphasize the negative side and is larger as the opposition is stronger. Again, while candidates are chosen and elected by "pluralities" and are often in a minority of the whole, as in this very case of the choice of a

Democratic United States Senator, where the larger number of voters voted against him and desired some other candidate, questions are, on the other hand, settled by "majorities" so that their decision must inevitably be regarded as a fair decision by all who have cared to express their opinion either for or against them.

It may be doubted whether Republicans are reconciled to the selection of a Democratic Senator in a state that is nearly two-thirds Republican, simply because the percentage on the total vote was as high as ninety-six per cent., of which forty-four, nine-tenths per cent. went to the Democratic candidate, forty-three, six-tenths per cent. went to the Republican, and seven, seven-tenths per cent. to the two other candidates.

The following table will permit an examination of the figures in more detail. The nineteen questions are numbered as they are given in order in the Secretary of State's pamphlet, and are earmarked to show their source and character (Leg.Legislature; I.-Initiative; C. A.-Constitutional Amendment; Ref.-Referendum on act of the legislature) and as to whether carried (yes) or defeated (no).